LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!!! I hope you don't get kicked off the site, that was the most interesting bit of info. I have recieved so far. Yeah, one thing that worries me is the amount of drugs I did in the past. I only did shrooms a few times (but should have done those more than the other stuff I did, natural is always safer). I did meth for a year, xtacy, for two years, 10 years of pot, and 10 years of drinking, and smoked cigs for 10 years. I was a party chick. The one thing I am thankful for is that all that partying didn't damage my looks (i know that's vain, but it could have happened). I am 29 and look about 19. I've had 3 children ages 5, 4 and 2 and still 130 lbs. Anyway, I think my head is flipping out now cuz the head injury triggered some crazy delayed chemical reaction or something lol (not genuinley funny but maybe possible). It's been 6 years since I've done any drug or smoked a ciggarette. I would have an occasional beer or glass of wine but that's it. I gave my life to God and straightened up (for the most part, no one's perfect). So I wonder why that works, like what is the science behind the shroom? Something to research....

Are you gonna try that? LOL

People need a cure any way it can come. Your not bad for mentioning it in my opinion.

Glad you found my post interesting Bri. As for your past history of drug and alcohol use, I don't think it is a factor. I know people who have never smoked or drank and suffer fro chronic cluster headaches. 75% of cluster heads smoke. Not everyone who smokes gets a cluster headache. In my opinion, cluster, migraine, paroxyml hemecrania, are genetic. Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones, has good genes. He's partied enough for all of us and he does not have a headache condition

My concern is with the TAC type headache (HA). See here for quick reference:

http://www.chpci.com/index_files/h5.htm

I have the chronic case of paroxyml hermecrania. I am 44 years old and it began 19 months ago and I could be facing a lifetime of this. It is a daily, unremitting HA that has seriously altered my life. The only prescription drug that I have taken that it respons to is Indomethacine. Indocin is a non steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) that is notorious for severe gastri side effects, ie. peptic ulcers, etc. Some can take itindefintely, most cannot. Antacids can be given but the long term out look may not be so good. Yesterday my Nuero offered me Lyrica or Nurontin. Thanks but no thanks for now. Stupefying drugs and I need to be sharpe as a TAC everyday. There may come a time when I am forced to try these drugs or others. But based what the experts say, these will be last resorts for me. To my mind, the experts are the people suffering with these HA's and who have spent years experimenting with different drugs. The doctors don't have the HA and they don't take the drugs. They just pass one out till you come back to get another.

As for the indole hallucinogens, in 1938 Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman was looking for a pain reliever for migraine as well as child birth when he discovered LSD. LSD, psilocybin, and LSA are all in the same class. DMT is included but this not the most practical one due to it's lack of availability and superduper strength. LSA, in case you don't know, come from certain morning glory seeds and is similar in chemical structure to LSD.

I may stand corrected, but the theory is that there is a malfunction in the brain as it relates to pain signaling which is causing the HA. We don't know why this is happening. A sub-psychedelic dose of one of these agents, will flood the brain with serotonin like molecules which will push normal (in our case, the malfunctioning molecules) out of the way and will settle in to the receptor sites. In essence, this is a rearrangement of the signal. This is a treatment, not a cure.

I took psychedelics for recreation before I ever got this HA. Mostly in my younger days but I still dabbled here and there. So it was no big leap of faith for me to try this. Over the past year, I have made 3 attempts. I am currently on my 4th. This time with a new approach. Initially back in Dec 2009 my Nuero diagnosed me with " cluster variant". So I set about thinking I had cluster. Over the next few months I took a regimen of various drugs which were either ineffective or has intolerable side effects. Interestingly, the first drug he put me on was Indomethacin. Smart move on his part. My response was that it did not work. When I tried it again 5 months later, I took it long enough to get a benefit but it tore my stomach up so I stopped.

As I reasearched, every day of my life and still doing so, I came to realize that I did not have classic cluster head symptoms. Someone oanother message board, a site that I will reveal shortly, sent me a link with HA info and when I read the description of Hemicrania Continua, my jaw hit the floor. That is what I have!!! Cluster does NOT respond to Indomethacin, HC does!

"Busting" as they refer to it, is a clustehead taking a dose of LSD, mushrooms, or LSA in order to "bust" the HA cycle. Most cluste heads get cycles. A good example is a two cycle cluster: 2 months of daily HA's in early spring and then a period of remission until the next 2 month cycle later in the year. The idea is to bust the cycle before it is scheduled to begin. This will prevent it from ever coming. In this scenario, one only needs 2 doses per year. As one starts out on the busting journey, he/she may already be in cycle and will need to bust more in order to break it. Typically this is a dosing schedule of once every 5-7 days for 2 to 3 weeks.

Chronic clusterheads on the other hand, never experience a remission. The HA is always on the attack. This may require several busts to break. I was never able to break my own chronic cycle. I wondered since I realized I have HC and not CH, maybe it would not work for me. But these HA's are in the same family and work along the same pathway. So I have not given up yet. The reason is that during many of my own busting attempts, both with shrooms and LSD, I experienced definite relief. A clarity came over me and my pain slipped away as if vacccumed. Once for 3 nights following a low dose bust 3 days earlier, I enjoyed 3 clearheaded evenings for the first time since this ordeal began. The problem is that I have not been able to get lasting and consistent relief. Why?

I got lots of advise from the site I mentioned earlier is clusterbusters.com. I seem to be the only one on the board with HC. Everyone else has cluster and a few have migraine as well. This last time around, exasperated and realign suffering everyday and night, I contacted the founder of the non-profit organization himself. He is the reputable cluster head I spoke of earlier. Bob Wold.

http://vimeo.com/10918637

He said that he did know a couple of people with HC that had success busting. He theorized that since I have been streching doses to every 7 days, I was allowing my HA to return to square one. He recommended I try a 3 day bust. Take my normal dose Friday, the on Saturday and Sunday, take 1/2 that same dose. Due to a fast tolerance to the effects, I would not even feel the effects of Saturday and Sunday's doses. The idea is to spend more time "bathing the receptors". Then follow it up 5 days later with my regular dose. Makes sense to me and what do I have to lose except a HA? This may be a long shot. People with HC have suffered with a daily HA for decades! Why should I be able to break mine with an illegal drug? It is my dream and I have all my chips on it at the moment.

Bob has also mentioned I may want to increase my Friday dose a bit. I have LSD on blotter paper and I also have mushrooms. To conserve on the paper, I decided to take 1/2 tab and .5g of shrooms. When I smashed the dried shrooms in to a powder with a spoon, I noticed a lot of blue tint, in indiction of the presence of psilocybin. This batch is very potent. I did not think much of it but it did turn out to be pretty strong. I have done this combo before and the acid always trumped the shrooms. Not this time. At least for the first 4-5 hours. I dosed at 4:30pm yesterday and as soon as I felt this first hint that the dose was coming one, I felt a noteworthy and slightly alarming spike in my head. It was different. Seemed to be a sign of things to come. By 5:00 I know I was gonna be tripping hard soon. That alarmed me a bit but I could handle it. At 5:15 on my back porch, alone, I was hit with the trip and one ****ing hell of a HA all at once. This has me hanging on to a table and quite scared. It seemed to be the hardest hit I had ever had. I hesitated but finally at @ 5:43 I sent Bob a text asking, CAn you get a bad bad hit during a bust? He said sometimes, sorry. Ok so I called my wife and she calmed me down. I crawled into bed and endured hit of pain after hit of pain....all the while tripping my ass off. I needed a babysitter and Bob was there. He got me thru for an hour till my wife came home. The exacerbations became gradually less and less intense and by 9:00 I was dancing to the Grateful Dead

Basically I stored up a hornets nest. My HA has been on the rise anyway. I and others believe that, due to my weekly busting since June 7, there has been a molecular war going on. The incorrect molecules causing my pain are in a battle with the "correct" molecules I am flooding my brain with.

This am I took 1/4 tab and felt nothing. Tomorrow I will do the same. After my little dance party last nigh, my HA returned about midnight. A very strong hit...stronger than I had had in the previous 2 hours. At 5:00 am today I work with another banger. I've been in bed all day with a steady HA. No wax and wane. Almost like my base line had risen. It all dissipated about 2:00 today and for the last 3 hrs I have been virtually pain free. We will see when the next week brings. I prayed hard last night. I prayed for God to allow me to break this Ha. Make is episodic at least. Clear as a bell this very moment in beautiful time. Time is the moving image of eternity. Plato said that.

What I have done is not recommended for everyone or for every type of HA. D your own research please. I think that's all for now. I will leave you with this. Harvard is bringing it back:

Well thank you for that very imformative response, a very enjoyable read lol. Not only do you bring humor to this screwed up situation of life, but you bring a new hope with something that I consider to be a better choice than man made crap that screws up other parts of your body as it's trying to cure another part.

I am soooooo happy to hear that you are pain free at the moment, I almost want to cry (and that is not sarcasm). I pray for that day for myself every second. As soon as I get a diagnoses I will probably give it a go myself. As far as all of this head stuff being genetic, my grandma is the only one in my fam that suffered migraines. Like I said before I'm pretty sure my head injury is what brought all of this on. I read up on head injury and it can bring on a whole lot of stuff like seizures, MS, etc. Then again I think about all the UFC fighters and football players who have had the lights knocked out of them over and over again, and all the concussions they've had, and they're still in the game. I don't know, maybe we picked the short straw lol.

I have spent a lot of my life in pain. I used to have a bladder condition that was very painful every second of life and there was no cure. It's called interstitial cystitus (IC). It's like having razor blades in your bladder contantly, your bladder hardens and shrinks cuz your body is attacking it, and your in the bathroom every 2-5 min. My life revolved around where a bathroom would be or how long it would take to get to one. Forget about sitting in traffic, not possible.

Tons of prayer is the only thing that cured that. One day it vanished. My urologist had never heard of that happening. It is a nervous system thing. For a while I thought it was my nervous system at work again, like vasulitis. My neuro said "no".

How many people in your family have problems with HA's?

Well thanx again. I will def be looking at all those links you gave me. : )

Bri, glad that bladder condition cleared up. Thanks for the compliments on my post. If you are considering this option, please be sure and read the FAQ. There is much info on cultivating that you may want to skip over for now. It's the method of ingesting, the side effects, and the drug interactions that you want to focus on:

http://www.clusterbusters.com/faq.html

My headache diary reveals that the bust did give me relief from 2pm on yesterday. It did reach a level 4 and touched on 5 for a bit but normally I get hit with a 6/7/8 every night. I'm a little more headachy today. I am in the middle of the worst hit since Friday night. It's at a 6/7 at the moment. Post dose hits are not uncommon. It's either that or just the plain old HA. This week will tell the tale I suppose. I will continue with the plan and take my regular dose next Friday. The experiment continues. I truly believe this method will work for clusterheads. Whether it will break my cycle, I don't know. There is no data on busting for HC. I am a test case. If it works, I just may become a psychedelic pioneer for the HC/CH cause. I have a drawer full of tie-dyes so it won't be a stretch for me.

A year ago I found out my uncle, 63, was diagnosed with cluster about 4 years ago. I had no idea. Evidence for the genetic factor for sure. You may have migraine like your grandmother. I don't want to speculate. As I said, its crucial for you to get a diagnosis and it sounds like you stand a good chance of that based on your location. Good docs available to you.

Take care and chat with you later. Hope you start feel in better soon.

Well as for me, I gues the docs are diagnosing me with post traumatic migraine. I did not like the doc at usc, he was rude and not compassionate at all. At one point he laughed at me when I said that everything I have tried has made it worse and I was scared the new meds he was prescribing would do the same (what a jerk). I am not going back to him. I have an app. with a place in Newport Beach CA that is also very very good, but there first app. availbable is in Oct. (soooo long).

The doc prescribed amitriptyline which is an anti-depressant specifically for migraine. I took it for the first time yesterday and so far it hasnt made things a lot worse, but it has tightened up my jaw and temple area (and I have bad tmj as it is). He also prescribed Petadolex which is all natural. I started that yesterday too. I guess I'm going to try the amitriptyline for as long as I can to see if it can make a difference with the petadolex. Then it will be back to the drawing board if it doesnt help. : ( There is such a loooooooooooong list of drugs these doctors can keep throwing at us, I feel like I will just throw in the towel pretty soon. Just live like this or off myself. I hope you have good news.

So I think you mentioned some people who have migraine issues that are exploring your method of treatment. Do you know if it has helped any of them?

Brianna, my real name is not Jack ya know. But you will figure that out soon enough if you stick around. Took me 5 seconds to find you on clusterbusters. Please be sure and read the FAQ. There are some on the site who have migraine and cluster as cluster mom said. You should continue to get some replies to your post but I will notify someone on the board who i know that has migraines and busting has eliminated them. Its worth a try for you but you will need to be clear of all meds. That antidepressant will block the effects of busting. Not sure about that natural stuff you on are on but keep learning from clusterbusters before you decide to dose.

As for me, there has been definite improvement. Still working it though. Before The 3 day bust which did fri, sat, and sun, I was getting hit with pain levels 7 and 8. Mon thru Wed my daytime hits were less intense, especially yesterday. I had a very good day yesterday. However, last night it cranked up a bit. Never got to an 8 but it kissed a 7 for a bit. Today my daytime hits were back up a bit but tonight it has really settled down. Overall, there is definite improvement and the pattern has gone a little wacky. It is common for the pattern to be disturbed after a good bust.

My goal is pain free and I am not there yet. I did not expect to be at this time. Gonna keep moving forward.

Now see if you can find me on clusterbusters. Please say hi when you do

I am sorry you had a bad experience with that so called doctor. It's not much of a surprise. I do think you are doing the right thing by continuing to seek a good nuerologist.

Oh and btw, never, ever think of offing yourself. You must remember that there is always someone in a worse situation than you. There is hope for you. You must have hope. Your kids need you. You will get well. It may take some time and you have to hang in there. You have my ful support and I will be here for you. So will the folks at clusterbusters. You will see.

Thanx for the encouragement, I feel like I need encouragement all day everday and there isn't anyone around to give it to me (needy i guess). I know there are others worse off and it's amazing to me how they find the strength to keep going. I pray everyday "lord either heal me or kill me pls".

I think I did find you on clusterbusters, you have a diff screen name. Do you have the pic holding the guitar? I wasn't super sure.

Thank you for offering to contact the people with the migraines, that would be really helpful. I would love to hear their stories.

I'm glad your feeling o.k, I can't wait until I hear you are pain free!

I 've had a similar problem for 50 days. I've mri's, mrvs, topamax, chiropractors. While the pressure has eased up a little, it is still very much still there. One doctor even said "there is nothing wrong with you". What????? The chiropractor is the only person who has acknowledged there is a problem. Everyone else just wants to increase my pain tolerance not find the root of the problem. This came out of nowhere. I have no history of headaches, no health concerns. No dr. is even interested in finding the root of the problem.

I was having terrible head pressure for months before I figured out it was caused by the Epstein-barr virus (mono). It can reactivate even if you've had it early in life. I also had a reactivation of the HH6 virus. I went on valtrex (antiviral) and the pressure went down almost right away. If you haven't been tested for mono, get the EBV DNA PCR quant test... it measures the exact count rather than a simple negative/positive test

Eliminate aspartame from your diet and you may feel better. I no longer have headaches (after purging my body of aspartame), I'm 58 and I've had them since I was 16. Until 2 months ago I had no idea how harmful aspartame - loosely labeled an artificial sweetener but it's actually a toxin - can be, it can induce 92 symptoms or side effects. It hides under many, many names, click on my name and you'll see lots of past posts I've listed these many names. If you drink diet drinks, chew gum (Dentynne, Trident, etc.) or breath mints, eat Yoplait light yogurt, you may want to give up these items - phenylalanine is listed on ingredients if not outright aspartame, but phenylalanine is 1/3 of a chemical that goes into making the chemical aspartame.

Simply google aspartame and headaches, you'll no doubt be as shocked as I was to discover this chemical has no business being in so many of our drinks and food items (6000+ and counting).

I am not a doctor, and as odd as this sounds, you might want to go to the dentist. I had a similar issue and was treated for months, almost a full year for different things only to find out that I had an abscessed tooth and needed a root canal. had that done and voila!! The pain was all over. I hope you find relief soon. Good luck!!